A drug ballad -- and video -- built around the main character of the AMC series opens this week's episode. The song, 'Negro y Azul' (Black and Blue), is performed by Los Cuates de Sinaloa.By Josh GajewskiApril 20, 2009What made Chalino Sánchez a legend in the Mexican music scene wasn't that he was shot as he sang onstage. No, it was that he pulled out a gun and fired back.

That moment, perhaps more so than any other, seems to define the narcocorridos, or drug ballads, that have become a staple subgenre of Mexican regional music -- their spirit being one of danger, bravery and standing up to the enemy.

That bravado may also help explain why Pepe Garza struggled with the lyrics for a narcocorrido music video that opened Sunday night's episode of AMC's "Breaking Bad," the cable series about a chemistry teacher-turned-drug dealer named Walter White. It's believed to be the first time a narcocorrido video has been prominently featured on a major American television show.

"I wrote two versions," said Garza, a composer and longtime programming director for L.A. radio station KBUE-FM (105.5), which calls itself Que Buena. The first version, he said through a translator, was a literal translation of the English lyrics that show creator Vince Gilligan presented him. In that one, Heisenberg, White's drug-dealing alias, wins out in the end. But in Garza's second take, the drug cartel exacts revenge.

"I felt the [corrido] audience wouldn't quite identify with a song that had someone from a different nationality, named Heisenberg, beating the Mexican," he said. And so the song ends: "The fury of the cartel / Ain't no one escaped yet / But that homie's dead / He just doesn't know it yet."

The Emmy Award-winning show chose his version of the tune, titled "Negro y Azul" (Black and Blue), performed in Spanish by Los Cuates de Sinaloa. The song matches two speedy guitars and a bumbling bass with the enthusiastic vocals of Gabriel Berrelleza, who sings of the mysterious gringo from New Mexico who's making the new sought-after form of methamphetamine.

Drugs, guns and stacks of cash grace the screen, along with lifeless bodies on bloodstained earth. The video, made to resemble the bevy of low-cost and often homemade narcocorrido examples that populate YouTube, lasts three minutes, 35 seconds.

But just what those three-plus minutes may actually mean for the narcocorrido genre -- once hailed as a sort of "musical newspaper" of current events but recently criticized for sometimes glamorizing elements of the drug trade -- is up for debate. Garza, whose radio station helped popularize the genre when it started playing narcocorridos in 1998, went so far as to call it "historic."

But Elijah Wald, author of the 2001 book "Narcocorrido: A Journey Into the Music of Drugs, Guns, and Guerrillas," wasn't so sure: "I don't think we'll know until we see how much attention either the show or the song attracts."

Watching the video for the first time, though, the author grinned. "They've got the iconography just right," he said. "What interests me about the Cuates is there was this group called Miguel y Miguel, and back when I was writing about this stuff, they were the first modern group to come out just doing the guitars -- without accordions, without brass bands. It always seemed to me then that they were the obvious crossover group if there was ever going to be one, because, I'm sorry, accordions and brass bands just aren't hip."

The guitar-picking duo of Miguel y Miguel was in fact the biggest musical influence for Los Cuates de Sinaloa (the Sinaloa Twins, though they're actually cousins), started by Gabriel and Martiniano Berrelleza. Like Miguel y Miguel -- along with Sánchez, who was killed less than four months after infamously firing back in a shootout at a Coachella club in 1992 -- the Berrellezas, both 25, grew up in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, a region famous for producing drug lords and corridistas (balladeers).

In Mexico, those pursuits often intertwine, with aspiring musicians writing corridos for members of the drug trade in exchange for money, equipment or connections into the entertainment scene. They went north instead, crossing the border into Nogales, Ariz., when they were just 14. They landed in Phoenix, where they still reside, but were initially homeless for two months, playing music on the street with borrowed guitars.

Six albums eventually followed, two of them going platinum on the Latin sales charts. And now this: a crossover to American TV. "It's a beautiful surprise," Gabriel Berrelleza said through a translator. "We never expected to perform for an American television show, and we really never expected to sing about an American gringo drug lord."

I could be wrong about Pinkman's neighbour. If it wasn't for Jesse. Walt would have killed Badger.

His brother-in-law is going to figure it out soon. He knew something was fishy after they arrested "Heisenberg"

awesome episode, That opening scene was priceless. About halfway through their exchange I thought the only thing that's needed to make this really priceless is if he's a cop, then I just knew he was going to pull his badge out and boom! LOL... How long is it going to take them to figure out they've got the wrong Heisenberg when the blue meth is still being produced? I did see the suspicion in his eyes too, it didn't help that he tipped him off in their talk and yea, you could tell he was like WTF after Walt pulled in the way and they had the other guy. I also think it's funny that pretty much, they've got to keep very little of the money that they've made since the start. It's one royal screwing after another. Wonder what the chances would be that his brother in law figures it out but doesn't bust him and covers for him or gets in on the action?

awesome episode, That opening scene was priceless. About halfway through their exchange I thought the only thing that's needed to make this really priceless is if he's a cop, then I just knew he was going to pull his badge out and boom! LOL... How long is it going to take them to figure out they've got the wrong Heisenberg when the blue meth is still being produced? I did see the suspicion in his eyes too, it didn't help that he tipped him off in their talk and yea, you could tell he was like WTF after Walt pulled in the way and they had the other guy. I also think it's funny that pretty much, they've got to keep very little of the money that they've made since the start. It's one royal screwing after another. Wonder what the chances would be that his brother in law figures it out but doesn't bust him and covers for him or gets in on the action?

That opening was so well written. LOL @ them losing their money. That Saul guy is hilarious. He is going to take them to the cleaners.

That would be an interesting turn of events if the Bro in law got in on it. I could see him covering for Walt knowing he is going to die and Skyler is going to have to be taken care of.

It wasn't to bad, setting up a lot of stuff and a big buildup as to what's going to happen with the meet and his wife going into labor at the same time. Wife is clearly headed toward an affair with the boss. What's going to happen with cooked books? It looks like they're building things up for an all out meltdown lol. good stuff in that it has you looking ahead in anticipation, kind of like the Sopranos did.

It wasn't to bad, setting up a lot of stuff and a big buildup as to what's going to happen with the meet and his wife going into labor at the same time. Wife is clearly headed toward an affair with the boss. What's going to happen with cooked books? It looks like they're building things up for an all out meltdown lol. good stuff in that it has you looking ahead in anticipation, kind of like the Sopranos did.

no I didn't think it was bad at all. Love the pace of this show, general feel of it was dull, it's building up to something good

did see the preview for next weeks episode?? it's odd how all the women in this show are crazy in someway.

I knew as soon as he was going back to see Jesse after talking to that chicks dad in the bar that she was going to die. I thought he would actually do it though, like OD her, but he didn't have to do jack shit, just watched it happen...

Walter just letting that girl choke is absolutely the coldest and cruelest thing yet in the series. With Crazy Eight it was in the heat of defending himself. With the poison gas at the beginning, same thing.Tucco, again self defense. But to just watch and not turn her over on her side...

Walter just letting that girl choke is absolutely the coldest and cruelest thing yet in the series. With Crazy Eight it was in the heat of defending himself. With the poison gas at the beginning, same thing.Tucco, again self defense. But to just watch and not turn her over on her side...

I have been watching Breaking Bad again from the beginning and have noticed some things missed first time around....Namely, the issue of Walter and his former relationship with the company named "Grey Matter". In the first episode there is a cheap plaque on the wall of his bedroom dated 1985, the year he started teaching high school, commemorating his contribution to a Noble prize winning team with his skills in proton spectroscopy. I then re-watched the birthday party episode and the framed magazine cover commemorating Grey Matter owners winning the Nobel prize. They then talk about how Walter was once a partner in the firm. Then I re-watched the episode where he is lecturing his class on the subject of carbon and how General Electric screwed over Trace Hall, the researcher who perfected the process for making industrial diamonds synthetically. Then I watched the scene where he tells Gretchen Schwartz off there are side remarks from Walter about how he was squeezed out.

So a future episode about Grey Matter, Did the Schwartz's cheat Walter?, Why did they cheat Walter, Why didn't Walter get a share of the Nobel prize?, Why didn't Walter go get a job at another high tech firm after leaving Grey Matter?I am dying to find out.